Film Inquiry Recommends: 1970’s Car Movies

Over at our official Facebook page , we are currently posting daily Film Recommendations, with each week being a different theme. This is a collection of those recommendations! This week’s theme is 1970’s Car Movies. Thanks to the huge success of Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider in 1969, the 1970’s saw a large slew of car and road movies to try and replicate it’s success, many being cheap throwaway B-Movies, but some select ones, managed to emerge as some entertaining, original car films.

1. Race with the Devil (1975, Jack Starrett)

The second out of three films which co-starred Peter Fonda and Warren Oates (the other two being 92 in the Shade and The Hired Hand), Race with the Devil is a entertaining blend of horror, action and car chase genres, which features some cool old-school practical effects. Directed by Jack Starrett, a prolific B-Movie director (other great films include Hollywood Man and The Gravy Train), Starrett saves his budget for the second half of the film, where the action really ramps up. Roger and Frank (Oates and Fonda) are two friends accompanied by their spouses, go on a road trip in their camper-van for a simple vacation. The vacation turns when the group accidentally witness a Satanic Human Sacrifice Ritual going down and thus are relentlessly chased by the cult.

Oates and Fonda are enjoyable to watch on-screen as always and the action scenes, which mainly feature some Mad Max-esque car antics, are incredibly satisfying. The film is infamous for it’s odd ending, which kinda leaves you unsatisfied, depending on how you see It. A remake for the film has been planned for ages, but nothing has materialised yet. Anyone who wants to check out some more crazy car action films after seeing Mad Max Fury Road should definitely check this out.

2. Electra Glide in Blue (1973, James William Guercio)

Like most cult movies, Electra Glide in Blue opened to negative reviews and sunk into obscurity for quite a while. Revived by post-modern film appreciators, the film joins the group of existensial car films which arrived in the 1970’s following the success of Easy Rider. Electra Glide in Blue is about Josh Wintergreen (Robert Blake) is a patrolman who wishes to join the homicide force, but isn’t accepted due to his offbeat and obsessive nature.

When Wintergreen stumbles into a case of a suicide which could actually be a murder, Wintergreen goes out to try to solve the case and show the Homicide team what he’s made of. As he continues his case, he slowly realises the darker side of the Homicide squad. What stands this film apart from other detective films is it’s harsh nature and it’s bleak attitude. Wintergreen’s investigations frequently put him at odds with the Homicide detectives and his own values, slowly deciding how badly he wants to change himself for what he believes will better himself. The ending shot of this film is quite memorable and seems like a nod to Easy Rider.

3. Two Lane BlackTop (1971, Monte Hellman)

The king of existential car movies, Two Lane BlackTop is one of Monte Hellman’s best films and one of Warren Oates many great performances. Headlined by musicians James Taylor and The Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson in their only starring roles in film, star as The Driver and The Mechanic, two unnamed men who silently cruise the country making money in various car races in their Primer Grey 55 Chevy which is always underestimated by their opponents. The 2 men cruise forward but with no destination planned, at some point they pick up ‘The Girl’ (Laurie Bird) who joins them on their never-ending journey. After some time, they meet G.T.O (Warren Oates) a loud-mouth older man in a flashy G.T.O car, who decides to race the team across country, but as the race goes on, its largely ignored and they start to form some form of bond.

Some people may find the film boring, as it’s a film that lacking in overt music score and lacking a formal plot, it makes up for it in it’s message and Hellman’s careful direction. Any film featuring Warren Oates is worth watching as well, where G.T.O is a man constantly lying, trying to find meaning in life by trying to impress other people and best others. Hellman made some great films after this, including Cockfighter and The Shooting, some great alternative genre titles.

4. The Driver (1978, Walter Hill)

One of Walter Hill’s best films and one of the more influential films in post-modern cinema, The Driver is a film which draws from the French New Wave movement and old school noir elements to create a moody entertaining car film which gives Ryan O’Neal one of his coolest roles. The Driver (Ryan O’Neal) is a silent but talented getaway driver who is relentlessly hunted by The Detective (Bruce Dern), so far as to setup a bank heist just so he can catch The Driver. Possession’s Isabelle Adjani shows up as well as The Player, a woman who gets caught up in the Driver and Detective’s heated tension.

This film is quite influential due to it’s great aesthetics and it’s use of cinematic language to focus on the visuals and propel a great story, without using character names or big emotional beats through dialogue, so much of this film is done through action. This film continues to inspire filmmakers today, from Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction to most recently being a large influence of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive.

5. The Car (1977, Elliot Silverstein)

Panned at the time by critics and quickly forgotten, this Christine-esque car horror film is a movie resurrected by genre film fans and enjoying some late in life love. Due to the heavy slew of car films in the 1970’s (big successes being Spielberg’s Duel and Corman’s Death Race 2000), this film was lost in a sea of film’s cashing in on the hot trend.

The premise of the film is a car (a big black Lincoln Continental) is possessed by the devil and starts terrifying a local town, where it must be stopped by sheriff Wade Parent (James Brolin). Featuring some cool action scenes and enjoyable schlock qualities, it’s a film that is not shot the best, clearly lacking a budget to build upon its premise, but overall one of the more underrated car films of the 1970’s. This film is quality B-Film goodness, as it’s a film focused on it’s horror and action scenes, ignoring character development or any explanation for it’s supernatural elements.

6. Hooper (1978, Hal Needham)

After the success of Hal Needham’s Smokey & The Bandit, Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham teamed up another 5 times (including the Cannonball Run series), with Hooper being one of the more better films in their collaborations. Much like most action films in general, the film doesn’t have a deep plot, where the film is much more focused on creating likable characters and entertaining action scenes. Reynolds stars as Sonny Hooper, a skilled stunt driver who is hired by Roger Deal (Robert Klein) to work on a James Bond-esque film, which requires a huge jump which seems impossible and other varied stunts.

Due to being set in the stunt-world of film-making, there’s alot of great practical stunt work throughout the film and Reynolds’ character demands much more acting nuance that was required for his earlier roles. Whilst not the most deepest character, Reynolds does a good job of crafting the character of Hooper, who actually displays various emotions, which is refreshing to see an action film with a male protagonist that is actually sensitive and is not constantly seeming in a state of being totally fine. Action film junkies and lovers of 70’s cinema will definitely enjoy this film.

7. Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974, John Hough)

One of the big movies in Peter Fonda’s 70’s boom (after Easy Rider), Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry is much more like Race With the Devil than Fonda’s other films made around the same time (like The Hired Hand, a slow psychedelic western). DMCL tells the story about Larry and Deke, an aspiring NASCAR driver and his mechanic decide to rob a supermarket to fund their dream and are caught by the police, thus are on the run. They are accidentally joined by Mary, an old one night stand of Larry who has tracked him down.

The film is famous for it’s well shot car chase scenes, which are some great practical stunt work and done in an old school way which is missing from today’s films, where the action is clean and without a ton of edits to hide bad filmmaking. This is another film in this week’s series where the plot isn’t quite important, the B-Movie genre elements are and accomplishing them well is this movies priorities, which is does to a satisfying level. Fonda is an entertaining actor who sadly faded from mainstream fame over the years, due to a series of poor films around the 80’s and 90’s.

What are some other great 1970’s car movies we might’ve forgotten on this list?

(top image: The Driver – source: 20th Century Fox)